(Black)Water Flowing Underground
“…and you may say to yourself: ‘My God!! What have I done?’”
-The Talking Heads
I have been watching the Blackwater charade before Congress this week as it confirmed the painful truth about America as we have known it: It is gone. Sold to the most-connected bidder. In exchange, our Constitutional rights and protections were scuttled and sunk during a Law & Order commercial break. The majority don’t understand what has happened to their country or even seem to care. The entertainment offerings are enough to anaesthetize them from the grim realities of what a company like Blackwater means to their future.
For those of you reading this who don’t know what Blackwater USA is, wake the fuck up. Read this. And this. In short, this is the privatization of much of our military, operating under a different set of rules, with no vows to uphold the Constitution or anything. They are a legal mercenary group that is gobbling up BILLIONS of our tax dollars to do things like provide “security” for interests in Iraq. They guard oil and gas shipments, provide security to visiting diplomats and quell the riff raff on the Iraqi streets. They employ many former American military personnel ranging from Special Forces guys to former high-ranking officers. They also recruit military specialists (re: mercenaries) from other countries, such as Chili (an outstanding record there). In Iraq, they operate with an entirely different set of engagement rules than our military folks do, and there are many documented cases where their cowboy like tactics have resulted in the loss of innocent lives.
To make matters worse, Blackwater is run by a right-wing evangelical Christian nut job named Erik Prince (of darkness, methinks). He interned under George Bush, served as a Navy SEAL and founded Blackwatter USA in 1997. Blackwater was awarded a no-bid contract to provide the aforementioned services in Iraq and we have been paying the bill ever since.
Like I said, WAKE THE FUCK UP!!
There are so many things wrong with this scene it is hard to know where to start. I would think that questioning why we are privatizing many of the functions our own military should be performing is one thread we can embark on. A systematic disembowelment of our own military is running concurrent with the buildup of privatized responsibilities and resources. They are offering American soldiers up for re-inlistment more money and incentives to join them than our underfunded military can match.
Think of it this way: For every dollar we budget for this escapade in Iraq, 40 cents of it is going to private contractors like Blackwater. That is stunning, especially when compared to previous engagements like the first Iraq war.
But it is the Nazi-era parallels to this whole thing that makes my hair stand on end. It is the private military firm being allowed to build up personnel and resources without any governmental or Constitutional oversight. A company with guns, surveillance equipment, tactics and skills greater than my state police force, with a ideological agenda tied to a leader who has proven himself inflexible and incapable of acknowledging dissent or accepting compromise. This scenario, however paranoid, makes this post (and ones like it) a dodgy proposition. Who knows what private firm with resources and intent will use my online activities against me and/or my family in the future.
But I believe in America. My Dad fought in WWII and taught me that America is great because it is a country made of laws. Problem is, those who created our Constitution never envisioned having to fit an AK-47 into the scope of the second amendment. This same antiquated perspective never imagined multinational corporations so large that they could dissemble a government from within. That is what we are letting happen while we are watching Dancing with the Stars. That may seem like a fair price to some, but it sure as shit isn’t for me.
What to do? There ain’t no Mississippi moon here. Read, keep up, act by writing your congressional officials. Sign petitions like this one and this one to keep Blackwater out of California. This matter is of primary importance. More important than causes for gay rights or clean air. See, if they scuttle our military and replace it with something like Blackwater, there is no Constitutional protection for any of those things. Without Blackwater and companies like it, they won’t have the privatized boots to come kicking in your door someday because you don’t subscribe to their beliefs.
The conservative supporters of George W. Bush and this Iraqi acquisition always throw the rhetoric of supporting our troops smack into our collective faces. Here’s a chance to do just that. Support our troops,and our liberties, by de-funding Blackwater USA.
Now, back to our regular programming….
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